April’s Focus: Guests

It’s hard to believe that my family has been at Rocky Creek for 2 months now. So much has happened in these initial weeks that I feel like I have been here much longer than that! So thankful for how God planted us here in this wonderful church.

While the first few weeks were spent getting my feet under me and starting with the essentials, I believe we have hit a healthy stride and gotten together a great plan for going forward. In addition to praying and planning for the remainder of the 2017 sermons, I also wanted to work with our staff and leadership regarding some pivotal next steps as a church. Rocky Creek is healthy and so many incredible things are happening. The most important thing for us next is to move with the direction God is leading and work with due diligence as we go forward.

Set Things in Order

With that, our staff and church council have met and prayed about the next few things to set in order. Instead of trying to do too much at one time, we are going to focus in on one area each month to study, evaluate, and improve. While there will be obvious overlaps, having one focus per month will allow for all ministries and members to collaborate and unite about addressing one specific focus.

Monthly Focus

We have 1 key word for every month in 2017, and let me share with you where we are up to this point:

January: Pastor – While this is looking retroactively, it was a pretty serious decision you guys made, and I pray that over the years to come, we will all continue to see God’s hand in how he put all this together.

February: Website – The staff had already planned on reworking the website in 2017, and so we took the month to do a complete overhaul on the website, social media platforms, and other things that are in the works right now. This area is so very important because most people do their church investigation online these days and have preconceived notions about the church before they ever actually visit. The website is a way for guests to peek through the window and see what is going on. With a determined focus, the staff did an incredible job putting the new site together! Even the fact you are reading this post shows at how much of an easier pace we can communicate with our church family.

March: Service – We knew very quickly that we needed to make more room for people in worship. We were having people crammed in everywhere, stuffed in overflow, and some unable to find a seat just turning around and going home. Yesterday was the first day with the new schedule and I couldn’t have been more overjoyed – God honored our prayers and gave us two lively, engaged services. We have some room to grow in the 9:00, and a little room to grow in the 10:30. Even with emptying out the 10:30 into the 9:00, we were still full at 10:30! Amazed that in the first week it already felt great in both services. I was worried splitting the services would feel like a loss of momentum and it was quite the opposite! It’s a testimony to the hard work of our staff and the willingness of our church body.

April: Guests – As our staff hits the ground this morning, our focus for this month is the process in which we greet, connect, and follow-up with Rocky Creek guests. While there is a great system in place, we want to make sure that we are doing our absolute best to connect with all these wonderful people God is sending our way! While we are blessed with many visitors, we want to do our part to make sure we can build relationships with them and connect them in order to equip them to become disciples and disciple-makers. From the people our family has invited to come, the common response we have heard is how friendly and hospitable the people of Rocky Creek are to visitors. Amen – let’s keep that going! In addition to that, we want to establish the most thorough job of connecting with guests and leading them deeper into discipleship.

How You Can Help

You will notice progress in this area within the next couple of weeks, but we plan to fine tune the process continually.

As part of this church, here’s what you can do to help:

Pray that God gives us some wonderful ideas on the best way to connect with people in our context.

Seek out new faces in worship and get to know them.

Invite new folks to come along with you.

Learn the processes as we roll them out so you can be a part of the solution to connect people.

Before people pass by an exit sign and walk out our doors, we want them to encounter Jesus, get to know a church family that loves them, and have to walk over and avoid the opportunities to get connected because we are making it so simple for them.

Can’t wait to watch continually at how God uses our church to make disciples!

And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they did take their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to them day by day those that were being saved. -Acts 2:46-47